Intro

Good morning and welcome to the Monday Jumpstart edition of Hollywood Signal, our quick-hit industry intelligence drop crafted for filmmakers, producers, writers, execs and development teams. No gossip, all actionable insight – just the stats, buyer cues and market moves you need now. As always, we’re here to cut through the noise and surface what matters for the week ahead. If you find this useful, please share the newsletter with your team, and hit reply to let us know what intel you need next week. We really want to hear from you about what's useful, what' s not, what you want more of. Hit reply or email here.

60-Second Market Pulse

  • Weekend’s top film: How to Train Your Dragon soared to an $83.7 million domestic opening, easily #1 at the U.S. box office. It marks the biggest debut ever for the franchise, well above 2019’s Hidden World ($55M).
  • Year-to-date box office: 2025 domestic grosses have reached $3.64 billion, about +25% vs. this time last year – a robust rebound, though still ~7% behind the pace of 2023.
  • Streaming’s TV share: Streaming accounted for 44.3% of U.S. TV usage in April, just shy of linear TV’s 45.3% share. In other words, nearly half of American TV time is now on streaming platforms – a new high that underscores cord-cutting momentum. (Nielsen’s latest Gauge report shows linear and streaming nearly at parity in viewer attention.)
  • Cost watch: Keep an eye on production fuel costs – U.S. gasoline is averaging $3.13/gal, down ~16% from a year ago. Cheaper fuel is offering modest relief for location-heavy shoots (think transportation, generators), though volatility remains.